Michael Lambert: Kushner & Ivanka's $1.4 Billion Albania Land Grab | Trump Family First

Jun 12 , 2026 | When Ivanka Trump jumped off a friend's superyacht near Albania, she came back with more than a tan. She came back with a $1.4 billion development plan. This is the story of Ken and Barbie's Island — how Jared Kushner, bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf states, is attempting to turn Sazan Island, a former Russian military base of outstanding natural beauty, into an exclusive playground for the global elite.

In this video I cover:

• How the Albanian government secretly rushed through legislation to enable the sale
• The history of Sazan Island — and why destroying it matters
• The Albania protests that have rocked the country for over ten days
• Kushner's track record on similar projects in Serbia — and why it doesn't inspire confidence
• The criminal investigation launched by Albania's anti-corruption prosecutors (SPAK)

And I ask the obvious question: when the son-in-law of the most powerful man on earth comes knocking, just how much does Albanian democracy cost? This is a story about wealth, corruption, environmental destruction — and the extraordinary reach of Trump family power.

What Albania Teaches Us about Kushner's Real Estate Tactics

Jun 10, 2026 | Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has finalized a deal with Albanian officials to allow construction on Sazan Island in the Adriatic Sea.

The $1.6bn project is expected to build luxury tourism real estate on the pristine island and surrounding waters and wetlands. Spurned [sic] by the potential environmental impact of the plan and the possibility of corrupt dealings, demonstrators have taken to the streets of Albania's capital city demanding an end to the project.

Cate Brown, the Guardian's political enterprise reporter, examines what the Kushner real estate deal on Sazan Island can teach us on how Donald Trump’s son-in-law pursues real estate ventures and examines why Albania isn't alone in its fight

Jennifer Welch: Why Is Ivanka Building Her Own Private Island Right Now?

Jun 4, 2026 | Jennifer Welch of the I've Had It podcast joins Jim Acosta to react to reports that Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have purchased a 1,400-hectare private island in the Adriatic Sea off Albania, reportedly for $1 billion. Welch alleges the timing raises serious questions given Jared Kushner's $2 billion deal with Saudi Arabia and his alleged ties to efforts to shield Ghislaine Maxwell. Jim and Jen also cover Trump's UFC arch on the White House South Lawn, Hunter Biden fighting back against MAGA attacks, the far right's alleged war on the free press including the targeting of 60 Minutes, and what Jen calls the "repressed sexuality" underpinning the MAGA movement's culture war obsession.

Very strong language alert!

The Trumps are eco-saboteurs. They should be STOPPED. You can help stop them and help protect Sazan Island from the Trump family by signing this petition: Sign it here.

Why Ivanka’s Albanian Dream Is a Protester's Nightmare • FRANCE 24 English

Jun 5, 2026 | Erisa Kryeziu is an Albanian journalist for the independent media outlet Citizens.AL, based in Albania. She reported on the ground on the protests against the construction activity.

When is the civilized world going to be free of the Grifter-in-Chief and his family of grifters, the Trump chumps if you will? If you are anything like I am, you are sick to death of hearing about that corrupt family and the family’s little helpers. The news is full of Trump this and Trump that. The whole thing is so damn TIRESOME. The pain that those American DORKS unleashed upon the world when they voted for that orange fascist is unbelievable! It is high time that Americans start to try and undo their dangerous experiment. Electing a businessman into high political office is NEVER a good idea. A businessman’s raison d’être is ALWAYS the bottom line: profit. And so it has been with Trump at the helm. The profit, of course, is always for him, his family, and his little helpers. However, a sound, well-run economy is far, far more than this. A sound, well-run economy should ALWAYS be run for the benefit of all. Such a concept is totally and utterly alien to people like Trump and his chumps.

This Albanian nightmare is proof of corruption at the top — at the top of Albanian society, and corruption at the top of American society. STOP this DAMN CORRUPTION! — © Mark Alexander

Ivanka Trump's Sazan Island Dream Project Torpedoed? Albania Protests Kushner–Rama Deal

Jun 7, 2026 | A major luxury development linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner is facing growing backlash in Albania, where thousands of protesters have taken to the streets against the proposed $1.4 billion Sazan Island project.

Demonstrators have targeted the development, backed by Kushner's Affinity Partners, with some invoking Jeffrey Epstein as they criticize the plan.

The controversy has intensified scrutiny of the high-profile project and fuelled debate over its political, environmental and economic impact on the Balkan nation.


It sounds to me as if the Albanian government is as corrupt as Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, and the rest of the mob! I hope and trust that Albanians will be successful in stopping this crazy project. The Trumps have kitsched up just about everything they have ever touched—just look at that Oval Office for proof!—so don’t let them kitsch up Albania’s beautiful coastline now, as well. — © Mark Alexander

Living in Albania | The Country Communism Forgot to Leave | 4K Documentary

Jun 3, 2026 | A country the size of Maryland built one hundred and seventy-three thousand concrete bunkers — roughly one for every sixteen people — against an invasion that never came.

For forty-one years it was the only nation in Europe to declare itself atheist by law.

One fifth of its people now live abroad.

This is Living in Albania. On a hillside above the village of Leskovik, a shepherd ducks into a concrete bunker the size of a refrigerator and hangs his canvas bag from a hook that was drilled into the wall in 1979. The country has one hundred and seventy-three thousand of them, built between 1967 and 1986.

On the Adriatic coast at Vlorë, a plaque above the harbour names a date: the seventh of March, 1991, when twenty-five thousand Albanians left this port in six days for the Italian shore. A few streets back from the water, the apartment blocks the regime poured in grey have been repainted, one building at a time, in cobalt and ochre.

Mass Protests Erupt in Albania over Kushner–Ivanka Trump Tourism Project

Jared and Ivanka’s mega resort not wanted in Albamia.

Can Trump's family do business abroad without controversy? | DW News

Jun 5, 2026 | Thousands of Albanians have taken to the streets to protest a proposed $1.6 billion luxury resort linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump.

Supporters say the project will bring jobs, investment and tourism. Critics argue it raises questions about transparency, political influence, environmental protection, and Albania's ambitions to join the European Union.

Casey Michel of the Human Rights Foundation joins DW News to examine what the controversy reveals about foreign investment, political power and the global influence of the Trump family.


Shoo those Trumps away! — © Mark Alexander

Thousands March against Kushner-backed $1.6 Billion Albania Resort | APT

Jun 5, 2026 | Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tirana, Albania, opposing a €1.4 billion ($1.6 billion) luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner's investment firm. Demonstrators accused Prime Minister Edi Rama of allowing development in the environmentally sensitive Zvernec-Narta Lagoon, home to thousands of flamingos and other protected wildlife. Protesters carried banners reading "Albania Is Not For Sale" and demanded the government's resignation, arguing that the project threatens the country's natural and cultural heritage.

Jared Kushner's Albania Resort Project Triggers Mass Protests | Vantage on Firstpost

Jun 3, 2026 | Thousands of Albanians are protesting a luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law. The project involves 10,000 hotel rooms across 2.5 square kilometres of protected coastal land on Sazan Island and the Vjosa-Narta nature reserve. Albania’s powerful anti-corruption body has opened a formal investigation into how the land was acquired. Private security guards were filmed dragging a protester along a cliff. Ivanka Trump called Sazan a private island they discovered. Hem Kaaur Saroya breaks down what the project involves and why the pattern keeps repeating.

Kushner-linked Resort Plan Sparks Protests in Albania | DW News

Jun 4, 2026 | A multi-billion-euro resort project on Albania’s Adriatic coast - linked to Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump - is facing mounting protests. The development would turn a protected coastal area into a luxury tourism destination, but critics warn it could irreversibly damage a key wildlife habitat and allege corruption in the approval process. The government says the project will bring investment and jobs. But with tensions rising and clashes reported, the controversy is putting Albania’s development model and political leadership under scrutiny.

Protests in Albania Grow over Jared Kushner-backed Luxury Resort

THE GUARDIAN: Conservation groups say work has begun in protected coastal area, while prime minister insists project will bring jobs and investment

This screenshot is from this Guardian article. | Protesters clash with police during third day of unrest in Albania. Photograph: Armando Babani/Getty Images
Protests in Albania over a proposed luxury resort backed by Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are set to intensify after opponents rejected an offer from the country’s prime minister “to discuss solutions”.

Thousands took to the streets of Tirana for a third straight day on Wednesday, some of them brandishing inflatable flamingos in a nod to feared environmental damage, amid mounting calls for the project to be blocked.

Protests are also planned for the south of the country, where groundwork on the $1.6bn (£1.19bn) complex recently began in an area long seen as one of the Mediterranean’s most environmentally sensitive.

“From start to finish there has been a total lack of transparency,” said Aleksandr Trajce, executive director of the country’s leading conservation group, the Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania (PPNEA). “We have seen no public consultation or public documentation regarding permits, and so now what we are saying is, if they remove the bulldozers, remove the fence and restore the habitats to what they were, then we can start talking.” » | Helena Smith in Athens | Thursday, June 4, 2026

The Kushners, just like the rest of the Trump menagerie, all have several characteristics in common: they are all corrupt; they are all ‘on-the-make; they all see dollar-signs in everything they do and undertake; and none of them can be trusted to do anything for the good of the community or wider society. Whatever they think of doing, if it doesn’t enrich them or benefit them in some way, they don’t touch the project. The project will be abandoned. It seems to me that the Albanians have got the measure of the Kushners. I should like to add the following: I would wager that there must be people at the top of Albanian society poised to enrich themselves from this. ALWAYS FOLLOW THE MONEY! — © Mark Alexander

Judge Killed in Courtroom Shooting in Albania

THE GUARDIAN: Man opens fire in Tirana court, killing judge and injuring two other people, and is arrested after fleeing scene

A man on trial opened fire in a courtroom in the Albanian capital, Tirana, killing the judge and injuring two other people, police have said.

The judge, Astrit Kalaja, was presiding during a hearing at the court of appeal on Monday when the man opened fire, police said, adding that the shooter was promptly arrested. “The judge was rushed to the hospital, but succumbed to his injuries on the way,” a police statement said. » | Guardian staff and agencies | Monday, October 6, 2025

Italy Blocks Meloni's Migrant Plan; Musk Calls It "Unacceptable" | Firstpost America

Nov 14, 2024 | Italy Blocks Meloni's Migrant Plan; Musk Calls It "Unacceptable" | Firstpost America

With the US election over, Elon Musk has turned his attention to Italy, jumping into its contentious immigration debate. This week, Musk criticised an Italian court's decision to block Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's plan to detain migrants in Albania while processing their asylum requests. The court ruled that seven migrants detained in Albania must return to Italy, citing potential conflicts with European Union law. Musk, calling the decision "unacceptable," questioned whether Italy’s democracy is truly led by the people or an "unelected autocracy." Italy's President Sergio Mattarella responded sharply, warning Musk to respect Italy's sovereignty, while Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini welcomed Musk’s support for Meloni's stance.

Elon Musk Told ‘Not to Interfere’ in Migrant Policy by Italy’s President | BBC News

Nov 15, 2024 | Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella has told Elon Musk “not to interfere” in the country’s politics, after the billionaire waded into a debate over Rome's migrant policy.

Mr Musk commented on a ruling by Italian judges that curbed Italy's controversial deal with Albania over processing migrants, writing on X that this decision was “unacceptable”, and that these judges “need to go”.

In an unusual move, President Sergio Mattarella indirectly responded to Musk in a statement.



Democracy has turned toxic! I wonder why? – © Mark Alexander

How Börek Is Made in Turkey, Serbia and Albania | DW Food

Oct 12, 2024 | Round, square or twisted into a snail, filled with minced meat, cheese or - quite unusually - with nettles - börek is a popular snack in the Balkan region. In Serbia, the inhabitants of the city of Niš are so crazy about their yufka pastries that they have launched their own börek festival. Our reporters took a look around three countries and asked them about the typical börek.

The Struggle of Being Gay in Albania | 2015

Dec 8, 2015 | Up until the mid-90s if you were openly gay in Albania, you would be sent to prison. Many homosexuals stil face bigotry and violence, even in their own homes. …

There is so much anger in this world. It is so sad. Tragic, in fact. The world is full of people who think, believe – nay! are convinced – that they know exactly how people should be and live. In fact, so arrogant are they that they behave as though they had a hotline to the ‘Papa in the Sky’, the Creator, the Power behind all things. The Power that is said to be omnipotent yet appears more and more impotent with each passing day, as so many natural catastrophes this year attest to.

Naturally, the answer to this is clear and simple: Live and let live! As long as people don’t trouble you, refrain from troubling them! Let them seek their pleasures in a way that suits them. Therefore, let them live in a way that suits them. Let them seek their own happiness; and then you seek yours. Life is far, far too short for all this hatred and strife.

Death comes to us all. Often far more quickly than one could ever imagine. One minute you are here; the next, you are not. I have personally witnessed someone dying right in front of me. Believe you me, a person’s last breath is drawn in the twinkling of an eye. That could be yours or mine. Then, to state the obvious, it's over.

It therefore behoves us all to be as tolerant as we can be. And if someone behaves in a way that displeases you, look the other way! If you happen to be a religious person and believe that the person in question is behaving in a way that is displeasing to your God, then God will have a way of dealing with that person in the next life. That is what the Day of Judgement is all about.

So, cultivate tolerance for the sake of social harmony. For as Jesus told us: He who is without sin, cast the first stone!

Homophobia is a sickness. – © Mark Alexander

How a Peaceful Country Became a Gold Rush State for Drug Cartels

Men detained during a police raid in suburb of Guayaquil.
THE NEW YORK TIMES: In Ecuador, an intelligence official said: “People consume abroad, but they don’t understand the consequences that take place here.”

A total of 210 tons of drugs seized in a single year, a record. At least 4,500 killings last year, also a record. Children recruited by gangs. Prisons as hubs for crime. Neighborhoods consumed by criminal feuds. And all this chaos financed by powerful outsiders with deep pockets and lots of experience in the global drug business.

Ecuador, on South America’s western edge, has in just a few years become the drug trade’s gold rush state, with major cartels from as far as Mexico and Albania joining forces with prison and street gangs, unleashing a wave of violence unlike anything in the country’s recent history.

Fueling this turmoil is the world’s growing demand for cocaine. While many policymakers have been focused on an epidemic of opioids, like fentanyl, that kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, cocaine production has soared to record levels, a phenomenon that is now ravaging Ecuador society, turning a once peaceful nation into a battleground.

“People consume abroad,” said Maj. Edison Núñez, an intelligence official with the Ecuadorean national police, “but they don’t understand the consequences that take place here.”

It’s not that Ecuador is new to the drug business. Squeezed between the world’s biggest cocaine producers, Colombia and Peru, it has long served as an exit point for illicit products bound for North America and Europe. » | Julie Turkewitz | Photographs by Victor Moriyama | Reporting from Guayaquil, Ecuador | Wednesday, July 12, 2023

Volodymyr Zelensky and the Spirit of Ukraine: TIME Person of the Year 2022

Dec 7, 2022 | Zelensky’s success as a wartime leader has relied on the fact that courage is contagious. It spread through Ukraine’s political leadership in the first days of the invasion, as everyone realized the President had stuck around. If that seems like a natural thing for a leader to do in a crisis, consider historical precedent. Only six months earlier, the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani—a far more experienced leader than Zelensky—fled his capital as Taliban forces approached. In 2014, one of Zelensky’s predecessors, Viktor Yanukovych, ran away from Kyiv as protesters closed in on his residence; he still lives in Russia today. Early in the Second World War, the leaders of Albania, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, and Yugoslavia, among others, fled the advance of the German Wehrmacht and lived out the war in exile.

There wasn’t much in Zelensky’s biography to predict his willingness to stand and fight. He had never served in the military or shown much interest in its affairs. He had only been President since April 2019. His professional instincts derived from a lifetime as an actor on the stage, a specialist in improv comedy, and a producer in the movie business.

That experience turned out to have its advantages. Zelensky was adaptable, trained not to lose his nerve under pressure. He knew how to read a crowd and react to its moods and expectations. Now his audience was the world. He was determined not to let them down.


Guerre en Ukraine : Volodymyr Zelensky désigné personnalité de l'année 2022 par le Time Magazine : Le magazine américain a également rendu hommage à l'«esprit de l'Ukraine». »

New Zealand Bans Dehumanising Conversion Therapy in Landslide Vote

New Zealand passes conversion therapy ban while UK continues to delay (Mark Mitchell-Pool/Getty Images)
PINK NEWS: New Zealand’s parliament has near-unanimously passed legislation that bans LGBT+ conversion therapy, with a government minister stating that it marks a “great day for New Zealand’s rainbow communities”.

Reuters reported that the bill passed on Tuesday (15 February) with 112 votes in favour and eight votes opposed.

“This is a great day for New Zealand’s rainbow communities,” minister of justice Kris Faafoi said.

“Conversion practices have no place in modern New Zealand.”

Under the legislation, it will be an offence to perform conversion therapy where the practices have caused “serious harm”, and offenders can be subject to up to five years imprisonment.

When the victim is a child or young person aged under 18, or someone with impaired decision-making capacity, conversion therapy will automatically be an offence, and will be subject to up to three years imprisonment.

The ban on conversion therapy follows recent comprehensive bans in France, Canada, and Albania, while campaigners in the UK pushing for an end to conversion therapy have been met with years of delays. » | Emily Chudy | Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Praise Ye the Lord! Enlightenment in the English-speaking world has had to come from the Antipodes! Kudos to Jacinda Ardern, the prime minister of New Zealand. BoJo, take some lessons!

That the so-called civilized world has tolerated this barbaric and extremely cruel nonsense for so long is an absolute disgrace. No civilized person worth his salt would endorse such a barbaric practice!

If, indeed, there is a need for any ‘conversion therapy’, it is for the need to bring straight people into line with the Enlightenment! If anyone needs conversion therapy, it is these ignorant, backword, cruel and insensitive people; indeed, perhaps they need to be brainwashed of their backward ideas and thoughts!

Sensible people, whether gay or straight, should celebrate this legal decision in New Zealand. The New Zealanders have done the civilized world a great favour: They have brought enlightenment into a world in which the lights are dimming by the day. Bravo, Jacinda Ardern! – © Mark